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1 Baroness Chakrabarti 1 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI ANDREW MARR SHOW BARONESS CHAKRABARTI SHADOW ATTORNEY GENERAL AM: Now we could have a very, very boring interview in which I said it’s all Jeremy Corbyn’s fault, he’s got to go and you said no it’s not, and we just go round and round and round in circle. C: So we won’t do that. AM: - and everybody else wanders off and has cups of coffee. C: So we won’t do that. AM: So let’s try not to do that. Let’s try and be serious about it. How deep a hole do you think you’re in when you look at that Copeland result? What did you think? Chakrabarti: Well I was in Copeland last weekend knocking on doors and I felt that Copeland is probably one of those constituencies that was neglected by my own party over some years. It’s remote from London, it’s changed its shape over many years. There’s the nuclear industry and people have done very well out of that industry and then the people left behind. And I think it just goes to show that you cannot weigh people’s votes you have to cherish them. And yes, we lost by two thousand but I believe that when people see what Mrs May’s hard Brexit looks like and when people see an alternative vision coming from a more united Labour Party as I believe we can be, they will change their minds. AM: You see that sounds a little bit like what Jeremy Corbyn said when he said it was basically a revolt against the establishment. Which doesn’t really make sense – C: it does though. AM: Just wait a second – how can people if they’re rebelling against the establishment turn and vote for Theresa May, the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party? 2 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI C: Well, from my experience in Copeland, in Copeland Labour has looked like the establishment for a very long time because they’ve been represented by Labour for a long time. And so there are peculiarities about that seat, like you know what was said about our position on the nuclear industry that was apocryphal and so on, but I don’t want to just make it all about the specifics of Copeland. We’ve clearly got work to do. We’ve clearly suffered from disunity to leadership elections in the space of a year. We’ve clearly suffered from the fact that our supporters were divided, like the country over Brexit and that’s been such a big issue for some time. But now I think once Article 50 is triggered, as it will be, we have an opportunity to unite about things that really matter to people’s lives, like schools and hospitals and jobs and benefits. Like the terrible cuts to the disability benefits and so on. AM: There is something strange happening here which is that on the NHS, on disability benefits and so forth you have messages which you think people really care about and are central to their lives and yet when Labour talks about it it does not cut through. There is something going wrong between the Labour Party on the one hand and the country on the other. C: Well I think on cutting through we have suffered, as I say, from disunity. If we’re always talking about the leadership and fighting with each other over the leadership that won’t help us cut through. I think sometimes we haven’t had the fairest almost balanced treatment in the media, including in the broadcast media. AM: As you know the Left has always said it’s the media. C: No, no it’s not the media. AM: For hundreds of years. C: No, but I’m not blaming the media. I’m just saying that the disunity has been the focus – I mean even on your programme 3 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI last week, a few days before a by election in two Brexit seats there wasn’t a single person on your programme speaking for the leadership. AM: There was a well-represented Labour MP in the paper review who was – C: And you had Lord Mandelson. AM: Yeah, we’re allowed to have Lord Mandelson, aren’t we? C: You’re allowed to have whoever you like but it wasn’t, if I may say so you know the fairest balance a few days before a by election in two Labour Brexit seats. AM: Well, except that Lord Mandelson and Tony Blair, who’s also criticised for this, under that terrible regime Labour won Copeland by massive majorities time and time again and the same with Stoke. C: It’s not about the terrible regime. It’s about the fact that representatives cannot weigh people’s votes anymore and my experience from talking to people in Copeland is that they felt that they were neglected for too long. AM: They were taken for granted by the Labour Party and they were going to kick back? C: For too long and that is not going to happen. And Jack Dromey is right when he says that part of what worked for Labour in Stoke was listening to people and listening to their concerns that are not about Jeremy Corbyn but about the fact for example in Stoke that people want social housing. About the fact for example that in Copeland people don’t have adequate roads and now their hospital is under threat. 4 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI AM: Okay, so we agree that something has to change. Let me read you Dave Prentis, a very important figure in the Labour movement of course, the UNISON General Secretary who said: “Stoke should never have been doubt. To lose Copeland held by Labour for 83 years to a party that has inflicted seven years of painful spending cuts on our country and is damaging the NHS is disastrous. Last autumn I said Labour had never been further from government in my lifetime. Five months on the party still hasn’t move an inch closer to Downing Street. Copeland is indicative of a party sliding towards irrelevance.” And that if I may say so is on your watch and Jeremy Corbyn’s watch. C: Well what I would say to Dave Prentis and some of these other “great men” of the Left, is that it’s time to unite because constant attacks on the leadership, constant leadership elections, constant divisions don’t actually attack the issues that would allow us to present an alternative vision of what this country should be. AM: Shami Chakrabarti, he wasn’t attacking the leadership there, he was describing is happening. He was describing reality. There are some people who say that you are all frankly distanced from reality, that you are hiding from what’s really going on. C: I don’t – well I don’t accept that. I’ve just talked to you for some minutes about what I think has been happening in places like Copeland. I think people have felt neglected and left behind by their representative including Labour representatives for too long and I think whether it’s Jack Dromey or whether it’s - or whether it’s Jeremy Corbyn I think that the party is in listening mode, but it won’t be able to put that listening into practice unless it unites. AM: We’ve seen a whole series of excuses about Copeland C: It’s not an excuse. 5 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI AM: Well you yourself said, “I think we have suffered from Storm Doris because traditionally it’s Labour voters who don’t have cars and find it harder in bad weather.” C: Well that is one aspect of all by elections when you have low turn – AM: We’ve had rain, we’ve had wind in by elections for hundreds of years and somehow voters for the opposition parties have managed to come out and defeat the government party for hundreds of years. C: There was a low turnout in Copeland having been to Copeland recently I know that it’s a very rural constituency, you know public transport is not great. But it’s just one factor. Of course that’s not the entire explanation. AM: Okay, well let’s look a little bit at Stoke where you did much better in the sense that you pushed back UKIP and you defeated UKIP. However, one of the kind of key claims of the Corbyn movement has been by – C: The Corbyn movement? AM: Well, Corbynites. Pro Corbyn people as it were. I’m not even saying Momentum, but that wing of the party has been that by growing the party membership so hugely you’ve put Labour into a new position. You’re one of the biggest parties now in western Europe. Huge party membership. But what doesn’t seem to happen is you don’t seem to be able to translate that into getting more voters actually out. So you get big membership but fewer voters. C: Well what I would say about activating the membership is that in Stoke hundreds and hundreds of members from around the 6 BARONESS CHAKRABARTI country went to Stoke and I’m sure that that was of help to the team there in getting the vote out. Copeland, a bit more remote. We had fewer people on the ground but I do still think that having a mass membership can be translated. Even if people recruit or persuade colleagues and family members that is part of changing politics.
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